Published byStanford Medicine

A recent article in PsychCentral highlighted findings published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings offering more evidence that extreme exercise for heart attack survivors could put them at a higher risk for a cardiovascular event.

Paul Williams, PhD, staff scientist for the Life Sciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Paul Thompson, MD, a cardiologist at Hartford Hospital, conducted a long-term study looking at the relationship between exercise and cardio-disease related death in about 2,400 physically-active heart attack survivors. The study reported on data taken from the National Walker’s and Runners’ heath studies at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. From the piece:

“These analyses provide what is to our knowledge the first data in humans demonstrating a statistically significant increase in cardiovascular risk with the highest levels of exercise,” say Williams and Thompson.

“Results suggest that the benefits of running or walking do not accrue indefinitely and that above some level, perhaps 30 miles per week of running, there is a significant increase in risk.

Competitive running events also appear to increase the risk of an acute event.”

However, they point out that “our study population consisted of heart attack survivors and so the findings cannot be readily generalized to the entire population of heavy exercisers.”

On the other end of the spectrum, the journal also included research from Spain related to mortality in elite athletes. The investigation included over 42,000 top athletes, of which 707 were women, and examined the beneficial health effects of excessive exercise, particularly in decreasing cardiovascular disease and cancer risk. Senior investigator Alejandro Lucia, MD, PhD, said in the article, “What we found on the evidence available was that elite athletes (mostly men) live longer than the general population, which suggests that the beneficial health effects of exercise, particularly in decreasing cardiovascular disease and cancer risk, are not necessarily confined to moderate doses.”

With the majority of Americans still at risk for obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, regular moderate exercise is still recommended by these researchers. As Hippocrates, the father of medicine, once said, “Everything in excess is opposed to nature.”

Jen Baxter is a freelance writer and photographer. After spending eight years working for Kaiser Permanente Health plan she took a self-imposed sabbatical to travel around South East Asia and become a blogger. She enjoys writing about nutrition, meditation, and mental health, and finding personal stories that inspire people to take responsibility for their own well-being. Her website and blog can be found at www.jenbaxter.com.

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